and I quote, "There may be exceptions unknown to me, but generally speaking, projective tests, trait scales, inventories, or depth interviews, are not proved to be useful in selecting executives or salesmen or potential delinquent or superior college students."

And I quote Dr. Bennett again, president of the Psychological Corp., a well-known authority, "Over the past 40 years a great number of self-descriptive inventories have been constructed and tried out. This reviewer is unable to recall a well-established instance of useful validity for a class of questionnaire against a criterion of occupational success.'

If we could start at that point, and if you could dispute that or lend validity or disturb the credibility, you would serve a great purpose here.

Dr. CARP. I don't know if it is ethical, but perhaps the best way I could refute at least part of it is by reading another statement by Dr. Bennett, if this is permissible.

This is a somewhat more recent statement.

Mr. REUSS. To refresh my recollection, who is Dr. Bennett again? Mr. GALLAGHER. Dr. Bennett is the president of the Psychological Corp. He is a Ph. D., president of the corporation that puts out these tests.

Mr. REUSS. Is that a profit or nonprofit group?

Mr. GALLAGHER. It is a profit corporation, many psychologists own shares in it, and so he would be a witness, you would think that would be in favor of the tests, and yet this is his statement.

I might say, Dr. Carp, do you own shares in this corporation?
Dr. CARP. I am happy to say, sir, that I do not.

Mr. GALLAGHER. Fine.

Mr. ROSENTHAL. You are happy because it permits you objectivity, or are you happy because their financial success has not lived up to promise?

Dr. CARP. I am happy because it permits objectivity. I have no knowledge of its financial success. But I think they are doing very

well.

Mr. GALLAGHER. Yes, it is a tremendous financial success.
Mr. ROSENTHAL. We are beginning to suspect that.

Mr. GALLAGHER. Proceed, please.

Dr. CARP. This is a statement from Dr. Bennett. He says, reading in part

Mr. JOSEPHSON. Excuse me. I think this statement should be identified, It is a statement which Dr. Bennett has prepared for the other body's subcommittee. I do not know whether or not he has been invited to testify before this inquiry.

Mr. GALLAGHER. We would welcome his statement or his testimony. In fact, we were trying to determine who could best state the position of the industry, or profession.

Mr. REUSS. Apparently you can get a witness on both sides for the price of one.

Dr. CARP. I think essentially Dr. Bennett's statement is:

I do state that I do not believe any accepted test or inventory properly administered by responsible persons invades traditional personal rights. For these reasons, in the context of such testing, the question whether public employment is or is not a right or a privilege is irrelevant.

I take now the Minnesota Multiphasic Personality Inventory to illustrate my thesis: This technique is really, as its name implies, an inventory, not a test,

though in the nature of the device no answers are "correct" or "incorrect", as we shall see.

Then:

The MMPI was developed at the University of Minnesota to assist in the classification of persons to whom various labels were attached denoting degree of psychological or emotional instability. The test consists of 566 questions to which answers given by a cross section of people present a different profile from those obtained from people who are believed to be emotionally unstable or potentially so. In fact, the test was developed by careful observation and experiment with the use of many more questions, including the 566, on 2 distinct groups of people at the University of Minnesota Hospital. One group comprised visitors to the hospital-presumably a cross section of the population-and the other consisted of patients who were being treated after diagnosis for certain emotional or mental disorders.

No one contends that every question in the MMPI is critical nor that better questions may not be developed. However, the 566 questions have proved satisfactory in practice, have been the subject of a great quantum of data and experience, and could be rephrased or replaced only at great cost and without assurance that the end product would be so successful a tool.

The answer one gives to one question-indeed, the answers to dozens of questions on the MMPI-are not critical in the evaluation of personality. Indeed, no answer is "correct" or "incorrect," Experience alone shows that certain constellations of answers are given by people possessing certain characteristics. People of similar characteristics, however, may answer many questions quite differently—so nothing is necessarily determined by isolated answers. The test is valid because experience validates it, though no answer is itself valid. For those reasons, the persons who evaluate or score the MMPI couldn't care less about what answer is given to a particular question. Such information is absolutely meaningless whether the question is whether one likes sailing in a boat or whether one wished as a child to be a locomotive engineer.

However, a constellation of certain answers has meaning-not because the developers of the MMPI were supermen but because they were careful empiricists. The test was, in effect, developed by the corollation of replies of a cross section of America with those of a group who were having emotional difficulty. The test therefore was proved before it became a test, and it has been proving itself ever since.

Now I should like to discuss the uses and abuses of tests. The MMPI is not a test to determine who should be employed in a job. No test should be the absolute criterion in such an evaluation. The job of selection for employment still is done best by humans and in my judgment this will always be so. That is not to say that useful psychological and testing tools have not been developed which can and do greatly assist the personnel or selection officer. But the task of selection must be performed by skilled, trained, and conscientious men and women using the best tools available. The MMPI is such a tool. It does not purport to be a test of a person's skills, education, or training. It only seeks to measure emotional components to determine the probable state of emotional equilibrium. Furthermore, the MMPI is not infallible, and its results should never be the sole basis for judgment. However, in those circumstances, now of increasing frequency, in Government and business of placing men and women in stressful jobs, some in faraway lands, it is only fair to the employee and the employer that predictable tragedy, be, if possible, averted.

The Peace Corps has had a remarkable success because it has chosen its volunteers and staff so well. When the agency was established, dire predictions were heard that the Peace Corps would be filled with romanticists, zealots, misfits, and escapees from life at home. The Peace Corps personnel have proved to be remarkably stable-far better able to cope with real austerity and adversity in good cheer than most of us. This is due in no small degree to the training of the volunteer and to the administration of the corps. However, nothing could have compensated for poor selection. The selection procedures have been superb. To a considerable extent the selection has been through the training process itself, which tends to weed out the miscast volunteer. But one must not entirely discount the role of the MMPI which every Peace Corps volunteer receives at the training institution.

I can assure you that the burden of the test is worth it to the Peace Corps applicant, who is saved from the embarrassment and loss of self-esteem from failure abroad after acceptance and goodbys to family and friends.

I think I could add more, but I think you get the gist of Dr. Bennett's remarks with respect to the MMPI and its use by the Peace Corps. Mr. GALLAGHER. Does he allow for error in this?

Dr. CARP. I am sure he allows for error in it, and the Peace Corps certainly allows for error in it.

Mr. GALLAGHER. It was pointed out yesterday that there was a false positive factor of 11 percent in this area of screening.

Dr. CARP. Well, the Peace Corps' procedures are such to take account of both the problem of the false positive; that is, those individuals who appear to have a deviant profile on the MMPI, and who are not in fact so psychologically deviant that they cannot be sent overseas, and also to help aid the false negatives, of whom there are some, those individuals whose MMPI patterns look perfectly normal, yet who are in fact emotionally disturbed.

The whole training and global assessment procedure, which lasts usually for 3 months, is designed to provide corroborative evidence in support of any hypothesis, based upon the MMPI testing.

The MMPI test is never determinative. The Peace Corps would never consider eliminating an applicant, solely on the basis of his MMPI profile. This is inconceivable, does not happen, and will not happen.

Mr. GALLAGHER. Well, assuming he refused to take it on the ground that it was an invasion of his privacy, or if the false positive factor is similar to the false negative, it is quite conceivable that some 4,600 young Americans have been eliminated as a result of even a minimum false positive factor.

Dr. CARP. No.

Mr. GALLAGHER. Last year 4,600 could have been, if you use the same 10 or 11 percent.

Dr. CARP. No; no one is eliminated on the basis of the MMPI, sir. Mr. GALLAGER. Well, no one is ever eliminated. But if they are not selected, therefore they are probably to some extent eliminated. If not, why is it needed at all?

Dr. CARP. One thing I would like to point out, that is the MMPI is not given to all 46,000 individuals who apply to the Peace Corps.

I want to point out the stage at which this is given, because I think it does make a difference. It is only given to those individuals who accept an invitation to a training program and who end up in training.

In this year, for example, there will be about 9,200 people in training. It is only these 9,200 people to whom personality inventories are given, so they are never in a situation where a decision is made merely based upon a test profile or test score.

There is always further followup, further study, further interview, psychiatric evaluation when required, observation in the training program itself, which contributes to the total evaluation of the person. Mr. GALLAGHER. Would you, as a psychologist, tell us why these tests are needed? What do they do? What is the justification for these tests?

Dr. CARP. We need to investigate and evaluate the emotional maturity and the mental health of these individuals. This is why these inventories are used. I know of no way, really, of evaluating the mental health and emotional maturity, the psychological and psychiatric adjustment, of individuals without investigating some of

the areas which are considered, or would be considered in other circumstances voyeuristic probing, or invasions of privacy, or unwarranted questions. This is why we use this test and why we ask these kinds of questions.

Individuals who are psychiatrically disturbed or emotionally unwell show disturbances in these kinds of areas.

Mr. GALLAGHER. Wouldn't it be possible to arrive at these same conclusions through psychiatric or psychological questioning between a trained person and the individual rather than to have him write down these answers, which become part of his permanent inventory?

I worry about a young man or young girl who answers these questions, and the possibility of them being taken out of context. They could follow them through the rest of their life. At some point along the line, the answers to many of these sex or religious questions might turn up when a person later runs for public office, for example.

This is the thing we worry about, that this is going to be something that could absolutely destroy this person's usefulness, merely because there had to be a written record as to whether or not he believed in the second coming of Christ, or whether or not his sex life was disturbed. There is the potential of danger here, something which could destroy these young people's lives if the answers ever fell into the wrong hands.

Now, do you feel that there is sufficient justification to put as part of a potential permanent record answers such as appear in the Minnesota test?

Dr. CARP. Well, the Peace Corps has taken and is taking even more serious efforts to insure that the kind of thing that you described does not exist. In the past these test protocols, the answer sheets, have not become a part of the individual's permanent record. They have been kept in a confidential folder.

Thanks, really, to being alerted by this committee, we have reviewed our procedures and have realized we can go even further. As of about 2 weeks ago, due to the prompting of this committee, all of these test protocols are being destroyed immediately after they have served their purpose, after the selection process is completed.

They do not become a part of anybody's file or folder. Nobody has access to the answers to individual questions.

It is also true that in our use of the test the individuals interpreting the tests are not concerned, are not interested in and do not study the responses to individual items. And I think you will agree that our procedures are such that there really is no danger of that material becoming a part of a man's permanent record.

Mr. GALLAGHER. Well, the potential for danger exists when a person has to write down answers to such questions because there is always a breach of security at some point in this type of thing. He has to write down his innermost thoughts and the secrets that he keeps locked up in his mind and heart, thus making them available to a government.

We have heard of many breaches of security where these personnel files will follow a person from one agency to another, some of them far more security conscious agencies than the Peace Corps.

Dr. CARP. I think it is extremely important that whatever measures are necessary be set up to insure the security of this kind of information and that it does not in fact become a matter of permanent record.

I do not think the danger of this is so great in fact that it justifies depriving us of what is useful information for the individual's own protection.

What

Mr. GALLAGHER. Well, again I might make a statement. we are opposed to, and what we are trying to perhaps resist, is the totally computerized man of the future of 10 years from now and that a young man or young girl, who wants to serve in the Peace Corps, and does such great work and noble work and serves his country and himself, that at some point along the line, all of this goes into the computer, and at some point along the line, someone presses a button and says "This fellow didn't believe in God," or "He did believe in God." We are placing these people in a position of jeopardy. For what you are trying to seek as complete knowledge of a person, at the expense of this man's privacy, does in effect place him in a position of jeopardy at some future point.

Mr. Josephson?

Mr. JOSEPHSON. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. I think I can give you an example that I hope at least will underline the seriousness with which the Peace Corps shares your very serious concern.

The Peace Corps prides itself on the number of former volunteers who have decided to work for the Peace Corps, either in Washington or overseas. Naturally we are concerned to select the best of the former volunteers to spend a temporary tour of duty on our staff. In that process, we do not use the selection file of those volunteers. Mr. GALLAGHER. Well, I am happy to hear that. The problem is that the danger still exists. Right now there are a lot of nice people in the Peace Corps. That might not always be the case. Therefore, why should it be left up to the hope that they will continue to employ nice people, with those files over there.

Mr. JOSEPHSON. That is why we have a policy of destroying these test protocols. I should also add we do not use computers in the selecting process during training.

Mr. GALLAGHER. This is a new policy you are talking about now, destroying the files?

Mr. JOSEPHSON. This was prompted by the inquiry from this committee. It has been a serious mistake for us not to have had a firm policy on this in the past. We have corrected that, and I am satisfied that the procedures we have instituted will insure that not only existing protocols, but all future ones will be destroyed.

But again I want to reiterate, no computer receives the information which the selection process produces. Computers do not play any role. Mr. GALLAGHER. I am looking ahead, as the computers jump ahead. I am recalling that the other day in settling a small estate, involving a 3-month-old child, it was necessary first to obtain a social security number for that child, and therefore any banking transactions would have to have his number.

Looking ahead, every individual will have a number. And it may well be, developing this to a finer sense, that when these people take this type of test, the numbers will correspond, and somebody will throw it into the computer, and we will have witnessed the arrival of the completely totalized, computerized, man.

Now what are we doing about this? This is one of the reasons why we are very concerned with the privacy of individuals.